Yala in Sri Lanka contains one of the world’s largest concentrations of leopards

Leopards are spotted regularly at Yala, resting on rocks situated on higher ground. Photo tharendra/license.

According to a PBS documentary called Leopards of Yala, the Yala national Park in Sri Lanka has one of the world’s largest concentrations of leopards in the world.

For more than a century, Yala National Park in Sri Lanka has been one of Asia’s most celebrated wildlife preserves, a lush windswept tropical forest rich in rare aquatic birds and abundant with ferocious predators, such as crocodiles and sloth bears. But only in very recent years has Yala’s big cat distinction been brought to light: It contains one of the world’s largest concentrations of leopards. NATURE takes viewers deep into the jungle habitat of these elusive animals, in Leopards of Yala.

Over a period of six years, Jehan Kumara, a businessman from Sri Lanka’s capital city of Colombo, and Dr. Ravi Samarasinha, a physician from the local countryside, devoted their spare time to tracking leopards in Yala. In the course of their work, they are joined by Scottish cameraman Gordon Buchanan, attracted to Yala by the lure of finding the only big cat he had never captured on film.

[Video] Leopard sightings at Yala National Park, Sri Lanka